Performance evaluation of TCP over multiple paths in fixed robust routing

Fixed robust routing is a promising approach for ISP networks to accommodate variable traffic patterns with low operational complexity. The routing minimizes the maximum link load by distributing traffic of every source-destination pair to multiple paths (multipath routing). The multipath routing can result in performance degradation of TCP because of frequent out-of-order packet arrivals. In this paper, we first investigate the influences of delay differences among multiple paths and ratio of shorter paths among multiple paths on TCP performance with simulation using ns-2. The simulation results clarify that smaller delay difference and lower ratio of shorter paths among multiple paths lead to higher TCP throughput. Based on the investigation results, we next propose fixed robust routing algorithms that try to improve TCP throughput in addition to decreasing the maximum link load. The first algorithm called MDD (Minimum Delay Difference) selects a set of paths with the minimum delay differences between the shortest and the longest paths as candidate paths for every source-destination pair The second algorithm called MDD-LF (Minimum Delay Difference with Limited Fraction) bounds the fraction of traffic routed on the shortest delay path in addition to selecting the same candidate paths as MDD. Simulations using ns-2 show that, compared to a straightforward fixed robust routing that selects k-shortest hop paths as the candidate paths, MDD and MDD-LF achieve about 22% and 27% higher TCP throughput while MDD and MDD-LF produce about 1.7 and 2.3 times higher maximum link load, respectively.